1. Field of the Invention
One aspect of the invention relates to disconnection or reconnection of an external device to or from a computer. In addition, one aspect of the invention provides means to interpret various key-pressing activities of computer system keyboard into novel capabilities.
2. History of the Related Art
When removing a portable, removable external device connected to a computer or computer system, it is highly recommended that a user should go through a set of steps for disconnection of the external device. Depending on the internal condition of the removable device, it is unsafe, resulting in loss of information and possibly unrecoverable internal damage to the external device, if the device is simply removed (unplugged) from the connected computer system without a certain procedure for disconnection. Manufacturers of the removable external device and/or Operating System of Personal Computer system provide software to perform a set of steps for disconnection, to prepare for safe removal of the external device. In Microsoft Windows, this software is called as Safely Remove Hardware. In this invention, a term “safe disconnection” will be utilized for a software for disconnection of external device.
As common practice, a user clicks a miniature icon in the system tray located at the bottom right corner of the Windows (Registered Trademark) graphical user interface (GUI) screen. The related icon is one of many icons in the system tray. In the prior art, this operation is cumbersome as the icon is small in size and the location is far at the bottom right corner. A prior art has put together a means with related software application. The art can be implemented in conjunction with global hotkey, which is to press a predetermined set of multiple keys at the same time for duration. This duration is prolonged as multiple keys need to be pressed concurrently. A different method of accessing the prior art is to execute the prepared application software through normal instantiation means, meaning launching a program from a prepared icon on the Desktop of computer system.
In addition, prior arts do not provide means to interpret various key-pressing activities of computer system keyboard. When a key of computer system keyboard is pressed, the specific key-code is generated and the specific capability linked to the specific key-code is performed. For one example, key “a” is pressed, the key-code for “a” is generated and the specific capability assigned to the key-code “a” is performed. If the assigned capability in this example is to take the alphabet “a”, then the alphabet “a” is taken. Thus, when the alphabet “a” is pressed twice in a short time interval or any time interval, the alphabet “a” is taken twice. Prior arts do not differentiate whether a specific key is pressed multiple times in a short interval or not. The Prior arts in the computer system keyboard lack means to interpret various key-pressing activities, such as but not limited to double-press and triple-press of key, into entirely different capability. While there is differentiated capability of single-click and double-click of the mouse input, prior arts do not provide means to conclude double-press and triple-press of key on the computer keyboard.